Breeding

At the moment all my mature Japs run in mixed groups, by that I mean I've got Jumbo's with Normals, Whites with Normals & Golden that sort of thing, I want to make a group with my Golden Jumbo boys that will produce more golden chicks (I only have 1 gold & 1 white with gold spot girls) -

What colour females should I use in the group?

How long after the new group has been set up should I collect the eggs for incubation to ensure that they've been fertilised by the new daddies and not the riff-raff?

Suz

Hi Suz,

Firstly, all the quail breeds you mentioned are all japanese quail, as you already know. I'm not sure on the genetic's of quail yet,but I would suggest you pair up all your goldens together,even if it means buying some more females in.This is going to give you the higher % of golden quail chicks.

As for getting the right time for incubating the resulting eggs, do not incubate any eggs until at least 10 days have passed.You can be pretty sure the fertile eggs produced after that date with be the Golden sired quail's.

Just wondering here, are Golden quails the same as Italians? They look like it to me.lol. Derek

Thanks for that Derek

There is no one round here selling quail, so unfortunately there's not much hope of buying Golden hens so I'll have to work with what I've got.

Yeah, I would say Golden's & Italians are the same quail, I call mine Golden's are they were advertised on eBay as Jumbo Gold & white Jap's, and think calling them Italians seem to imply that their a different species of quail rather than a colour mutation of Japanese - but that's just my opinion

Suz

the golden gene is incompletely dominant, so you will get 2 golden:1normal if paired to a normal quail.

if you put two golden together, there is a lethal gene combination. and 25% of the eggs will not hatch.

so golden to normal is probarbly better!

The golden x golden being lethal isn't actually true. I've read it in lots of places, but spoken to people and they don't get the skewed ration you'd expect for a lethal gene.

Also, its proper dominant not incomplete. So cross golden to normal you get 1:1 (unless its a double golden, then you get all golden).

Hi Suz,

I came across this web site www.gameforanything.co.uk/stock.html they sell jumbo golds (I can't remember how I arrived at it, probably eBay or google).

Personally, I wouldn't bother getting more jumbo golds if you have one already as it is a completely dominant trait as Ms I_N said and you should get about 50% gold offspring from a gold x Normal cross. I would only bother if they have larger birds (any colour).

Interesting info about golden trait Ms I_N. So in theory you should be able to have golds with 2 copies of the golden gene that can produce 100% gold offspring when paired with normals. I wonder where that "lethal golden" theory came from... an urban quail myth?

Incomplete dominance is more variable inheritance (e.g. English Range quail colour variety is suppose to be incompletely dominant). In humans black/dark skin colour follows a similar pattern. Black and White parents have children with variable complextions, particularly after 2, 3 or more generations of mixing.

So if you want nice dark range jumbos, then that will require more selective breeding using the darkest and largest parents you can find from different lines. You might want to alternate breeding for size in one generation (cross Range with largest normal jumbos), then breed for colour the next generation (cross darkest offspring with best size), then breed 3rd generation out to more normal jumbos to improve size further, and 4th geration breed deepest colour/sized, etc...

Once you know how the inheritance works for a particular trait you can plan the most efficient matings, however you need to keep them in separate pens, which isn't always practical and beasts don't care much about breeding to your requirements.

I'm pretty sure range is properly dominant too - I have a shafted range tux (EeWhwh) who I have crossed to a het golden (consider him eewhwhYy), and have had 3 range chicks (Eewhwh?y) and one golden (eewhwhYy) (range is dominant over golden - so the ranges may yet carry golden hence my ?y). My ranges appear to "breed true", my offspring are the same colour range as the tux. 3 offspring from one hen is hardly a decent test though!

No idea about the lethal golden thing, unless embryos do not develop at all (seems unlikely when you compare to lethal combos in other animals) and therefore appear infertile?

I heard about the lethal gene when golden x golden but wasnt' sure how true it was as I hatched 7 out of 7 from my all gold group. I have the jumbos from game for anything and I'm gonna do a weigh in today to see how much bigger they are than the normal size.

Wow I_N, you seem to have sussed out the colour genetics already. Perhaps you should be the purveyor of the colour standards. We should submit to you any pics of new colour variants, breeding observations, even eggs from these birds etc. Maybe we can correct some of the misinformation out there if it is wrong.

That's a great idea Harrie. Do the bigger birds taste different from normal size birds? I notice the eggs are a bit bigger (sometimes they don’t quite fit in a standard quail egg tray).

I've done a lot of reading of scientific papers, Andoy...There's a book that looks absolutely brilliant, unfortunately there's only one copy in the country, in the British Library and its a major faff requesting reading rights.

Gal out of my own heart. I've never had to request items out of the general area of the British Library. Sounds very intruiguing... bit like finding the dead sea scrolls.